Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Happiest Day of My Life

It was not my wedding day. Nor was it the day I gave
birth to my firstborn. Neither was it the day I moved to Israel. It was not
when I married off a child or became a grandmother. No, the happiest day of my
life was the day my youngest finished high school. Then I declared “With
HaShem’s help I will never have to go to another parent-teacher meeting in my
life.”

There are worse things one can do. One can be
stranded in the desert without water. One can be shipwrecked on a deserted
island. One can be attacked by a mad dog. Or one can go to parent-teacher
meetings.

I remember one parent-teacher night a number of
years ago. A mother walked out of a classroom with a big smile on her face and
headed toward the exit.

“Leaving so soon?” another parent asked.

The mother nodded. “Sure! My kids are good. They do
their homework. There’s really nothing to talk about except how well they are
doing. I’m off to exercise class.”

And off she went without a clue how much envy she
had stirred in my heart.

My kids were good kids, too. But they were not good
students. Almost every one of them had minor learning disabilities; dyslexia,
dysgraphia, ADD, ADD-HD, and so forth. They were minor in the sense that my
children could be mainstreamed in the normal classroom and the prognosis for
them being able to succeed in life was high.

I was very thankful they did not have major problems
but that did not mean I did not get overwhelmed with the minor ones. Unlike
many mothers summer vacation was a great time for me. It meant I was also on
break. There were no backpacks to check every morning so my children would have
the right books and school supplies. There was no detective work to determine if they had homework and pleading with them to do it.There were no calls from any teacher complaining about my
children’s lack of motivation. And there
were no parent-teacher meetings.

Those parent-teacher meetings were usually held
three evenings during the course of every school year. My husband and I were
always among the first to arrive since we wanted to end the torture as early as
possible. We always went together for moral support. As soon as we arrived we
would always race to our children’s classrooms in order to sign our names on
the lists posted outside the main teachers’ doors. Then we waited and waited
for our turn. Invariably, just as it arrived, another parent would appear,
declare he was next, and point to his name ahead of ours on the list.

Like the mother going to exercise class the parents
of the good students would have a quick conference and walk out with big
smiles. Parents like us would go over-time with the main teacher. That was just
the beginning of the evening. Regularly we would be given a list of other
teachers we needed to see like the math teacher, the sport teacher, the art
teacher, even the English teacher. It was always a late and depressing night
when we went to parent-teacher meetings.

Therefore, it is easy to understand why I was so
happy to have those conferences behind me. There were times when my kids were
in school that I wanted to give up. That night the mother going to the exercise
class bragged about her children I came home depressed. My husband’s words
comforted me.

HaShem
gave us our children with their learning disabilities because He knew we have
what it takes to handle them. Feel sorry for that mother. She wouldn’t be able
to handle our test.

Throughout the school
years I repeated those words over and over. Sometimes I truly believed them.
Other times I was skeptical but I stayed receptive to their message. It is all from HaShem and
everything He does is for the best.

Now that my children are adults, many of their
learning problems are behind them. Some of them have even gone on to higher
education and done well. The prognosis for them being able to succeed in life
became true. When they were growing up
jumping out of an airplane without a parachute sounded like as much fun as
going to parent-teacher meetings. Still, we kept going. Now I am thankful we
did.

Aim of Blog

Emunah, faith in God, does not mean believing only good things will happen; it means believing that whatever God does is for the best. I wrote these words at a time when drive-by shootings and suicide bombers had become almost weekly, if not daily, tragedies. Now, more than ten years later, the words are no less true. Whatever HaShem does is for the best. It is my hope to post articles, advice, and homey stories everyweekwhich will reinforce this fact. And now, a special thanks to:

Batya Medad, my neighbor and experienced blogger. Without her I would never have been able to set up

About Me

Born in Wichita, Kansas, I became a Baalat Teshuva, newly religious, in Phoenix, Arizona while attending ASU. After twelve years of marriage my husband and I made Aliyah with five children and settled in Shilo in the heart of Israel. Two more children joined the family as have daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, Baruch HaShem. My favorite past times are learning, sewing, hiking, reading, cooking, baking, enjoying my family and friends, and, of course, writing. My first novel, Sondra’s Search, was published in 2007 and I am working on the sequel.